The New Step-Family
by WritingInsanely
Summary: India moves from Australia to Georgia, Atlanta. She is surprised and finding it hard to fit into the American way of life. But she meets three people, Bella, Chandler Riggs and Sam Daniels who she soon befriends. But what she doesn't know is that the actor is also her new step-brother...
1. Chapter 1

I stared at the school that loomed in front of me and I watched as all the excited, scared, sleepy students scrambled inside making unnecessary noises.

I still couldn't believe that I had moved to Georgia, Atlanta all the way from Australia. It was so different... I wasn't sure if I'd be able to even make it through the day without breaking down, crying my heart out. I already missed my life back in Australia, my friends, my mum, everyone.

"You going inside or what...?" a voice asks from behind, catching me by surprise.

"Oh... Uh, I guess I have to." I mumble, turning around. There stood a girl with flaming red hair and punk styled clothes, I could already tell that I'd soon grow to like her. I have always been interested in these types of people, so carefree and not giving one crap about how they dress or what they like.

"I can see your new... my name is Bella." she says, reaching out her hand towards mine. I quickly send my hand out to her, grabbing it halfway and shaking it nervously.

"Whats that accent of yours anyway?" she asks, looking at me like she was trying to figure out everything about me.

"It's Australian. I moved in a couple of days ago..." I say quietly, and she instantly smiles.

"An Aussie? You'll fit right in, everyone always loves the Aussies!" she says enthusiastically as she takes my hand and leads me into the school.

The halls were crowded, like a river of busy people slamming lockers, making-out against lockers, damaging lockers and even graffiti appeared on some of the locker doors. She leads me down further into a class room and I follow behind her as she sits down next to two boys.  
"Guys, I'd like you to meet the Aussie," she looks confused for a second, "Hang on. You didn't say your name, what is it?"

"It's India," I mumble, I'm never any good at introductions. At the sound of my voice the two boys turn around to face me, they both looked kind of cute, one had wavy brown locks and he looked really, _really_ familiar. The other had blonde and brown hair swept to the side.

The brown haired boy sticks out his hand, "Hi, I'm Chandler."

I nod at him and turn to face the other boy when I realize something. and I snap my head back to Chandler.  
"Are you Chandler R-Riggs?" I manage to say, stuttering slightly. "From The Walking Dead?"

"Yep, that's me." he says and sighs, I guess he must get it a lot.

"Oh sorry I didn't mean to point you out like that... I was just making sure..." I mumble and feel Chandler's eyes stare at me. I don't look up at him instead I turn my attention back to the other boy who introduces himself.

"I'm Sam, samelicad on YouTube," he says, smiling sweetly.

"Oh, you're a YouTuber? That's awesome!" I say, enthusiastically. I know he must be over shadowed a lot by Chandler since he's an actor and all so I wanted to make him feel just as special. He smiled again at my reaction and ruffled his hair with his hand.

"Yeah," he says, acting all shy.

"How come you had to move here?" Chandler asks, straight away. At first I half glare at him, doesn't he know it's rude to ask personal questions? But then I might as well tell them anyway...

"My parents divorced and I have to live with my Dad." is all I say and the others nod in reply, except Chandler.

"My parents split up recently too..."

Then he must know how it feels to be torn in two? To try and keep on good terms with both of them even though they despise each other so much that they had to move away from each other, so far away that it was into a different country altogether?

"Yeah, it sucks." I say and the bell rings for first period. Bella and I say our goodbyes and grab our stuff for our class we have together. After long, boring classes of stupid, immature kids and nothing important to be learned I start walking home. And I remember how my Dad said he would introduce the _step mum's _side of the family. I hadn't met yet since we only just moved in and so did they. He said they had two sons and one of them was my age, I wonder who it could be?

A thought races through my mind that it could be Chandler but I push it away. His and my parents split up on coincidence, it couldn't be his family I'd soon live with, could it? For some reason I have the impression that Chandler doesn't like me very much and I don't blame him. He's probably over girls like me who have to ask if he's from The Walking Dead. _Stupid me, why did I ask that?_

I turn down the path and follow it up to the door of the house. I spot another car in the driveway and I immediately know that it belongs to the step-mom. Was I ready to meet the rest of the new family? Hell no, but for some reason I just had to find out if it was Chandler or not.

I open the door quickly to see no one in sight, what did I expect? A perfect, happy family standing in the doorway to greet my coming home? Of course not.

I dump my bags by the staircase and make my way upstairs to my room, I hear a shuffling sound come from the room across from mine and I realize that _he _is inside. My new step-brother.

Before I enter my room I decide that it's good manners to greet him first so I spin around and face the door. Just as I'm about to place my hand over the door to knock, it swings wide open and there stands a slightly flustered Chandler Riggs in my step-brother's room.

Or should I say his room.

"Uh...Hi..." I mumble, looking down at the floor immediately. I know it was rude but I was too nervous to talk to him, he didn't like me anyway.

"Oh... wow. This is awkward then." he says and laughs dryly and I force a smile on my face. This cannot be happening. What the hell?

_"_Sorry," I say, and I realize that I had no reason to say that. I guess I just didn't like to bother people, especially famous people.

"Sorry for what?" he asks, slightly confused. I look up at him and try to focus on his ocean blue eyes, but I focus too much and start to bite my lip. Chandler smirks and gives a small wink and I blush crazily. _What the heck am I doing?_

"Sorry, I don't even know what I'm doing," I say and I turn around immediately and walk into my bedroom. Wow that was mature, now he think your a stupid, scaredy-cat, fangirl.

I hear a slight knock on my door and I take a deep breath before opening it.

"I was going to tell you something before you ran away," he says, casually as he leans against the door frame.

I wait for a reply but he doesn't notice. I refuse to speak because if I open my mouth I'm scared that a huge, terrifying squeaking noise will leak out and that would be embarrassing. Before he looks up I notice that these were the only rooms up on the second floor besides the bathroom. _Oh no._

__"Sam is coming over soon," he says and I nod silently. He stares at me for a while, making me feel uncomfortable.  
"Why so shy India?" he asks, taking a step closer to me. I feel myself grow red and I look up at his cute face. You had no idea how much I wanted to kiss it, but I controlled myself.

"I'm just a s-shy person," I manage to say and he laughs softly.

"Just remember, there are no other people up here so we can do _anything_," he says and gives me a wild grin which I try to shake from my mind. _Anything? _

I don't want him to think that I'm desperate, no way in hell. That would ruin my whole reputation, I would absolutely hate to be seen as the desperate step-sister, trying to get into her step-brother's pants because he's a totally hot actor from a zombie show.

I look back up at him and smile, "Sure," I say and his eyes grow wide. He wasn't expecting that, no way was he. Now he'll know that I've accepted to play this little game of his, I'm not going to lose.

But before Chandler can come up with anything the doorbell rings its soft, light chime and he races downstairs and opens the door. I hear them talk excitedly about a game or a TV show, but I really couldn't be bothered to find out what so I walk back into my room but leave the door open.

"And you'll never guess what..." I hear Chandler say as he shoves Sam into my room, I look up from my book and notice his bright red face.

"India?" he asks and I nod. His eyes widen and he looks from me to Chandler, "I can't believe it. You two brother and sister?"

"_Step- _brother and sister," I say and immediately regret saying it. I wasn't sure if I was trying to be hurtful by disowning him or making sure that we could still be into each other since we aren't related by blood.

Sam starts laughing loudly again and then continues, "And you even said that she was hot."

My eyes go wide as I look from Chandler's red, embarrassed face to Sam's red laughing face. _He what? _

"You weren't supposed to tell her that you idiot." Chandler mumbles, looking extremely adorable even though he was pissed off. Soon we hear Chandler's mom calling for him downstairs, so he rushes away probably glad for an excuse to make a get-a-way.

Sam's laughter dies down and he sits on my bed, causing me to almost freak out. A boy has never sat on my bed before, let alone be in my room.

"I'm bored... want to make out?" he asks, and I gasp a little. Sam starts to laugh at my reaction and he quickly says, "I'm only joking... unless you really want to." and he smirks at me, causing me to look away and blush wildly.

"I-uh, I've never kissed anyone before so I wouldn't be any good at it anyway." I say, spitting out an excuse as soon as possible. I was terrified of this kid, why would he want to hook up with me already? Is he that type of guy?

"Calm down, it's real easy," he says as he leans in closer. Suddenly my hormones take full drive and I lean in closer, his lips inches away from mine. Just as we were about to kiss Chandler walks in and gasps, falling on his ass. I immediately fly away from Sam, stumbling off the bed and Sam breaks into yet another fit of laughter. I frown and I notice Chandler's angry face.

"Sam what the hell?" he asks, wildly. He looked so angry, I thought he might have decided to throw Sam out the window but instead Sam replies,

"Hey Chillax, we were just messing around." and Chandler's face goes back to normal, and he clams down. "Besides, she doesn't know how to kiss so isn't that up to the step-brother to teach her?"

Chandler's face reddens and so does mine, I push both of them out of my room quickly and shut the door. I hear Sam's whines from outside and his pathetic apologies. But Chandler tells him that he's scared me off so they walk into his room and close the door. I decide to start on some studying but it gets too loud, they shout angrily when they lose at their game and they shout happily when they win. Do boys ever shut up?


	2. Chapter 2

Soon my Dad and Chandler's mom calls us down for dinner. Before I even open the door I hear Chandler and Sam leap out of Chandler's bedroom and race down the stairs. When I open the door slightly I hear them slam their feet on the ground as they run to the dinner table. After the noise has died down and I hear them scrape their chairs in and out I open my door fully and make my way down stairs.

But I forget where the dining room is and I just wander around the massive mansion for a long time. Soon after my short walk I hear Sam and Chandler laughing, and follow their voices into the dining room. As I enter they both look up at me and smile their geeky smiles, I smile shyly back that them and take a seat across from Chandler.

A boy sits down beside me and I'm soon introduced to him, his name is Grayson. He must be the other brother. Finally my Dad walks in a takes a seat at the head of the table. We say grace and then start eating our dinner, which smelt amazing. It was pasta with a lovely tomato-ey sauce and flakes of cheese.

"So how was your first day of school?" Dad asks, looking up at me while he chewed on his food.

"It was pretty good I guess, I made friends with this girl called Bella. She's heaps cool." I say, swallowing down my mouthful.

"And she made friends with me and Chandler, before she knew about him being her step-brother," Sam adds, snickering.

My Dad laughs awkwardly and Gina smiles a small smile. What a way to make things awkward, thanks Sam.

"Well I'm glad you two became friends anyway," Gina says, eyeing Chandler. "By the way, we will need to talk later. All of us." and Grayson sighs and rolls his eyes.  
"Not you sweetie, just Chandler and India,"

His face lights up and quickly shovels the rest of his food down and makes his way back to his bedroom without being excused. I never knew boys could eat that quickly.

A few hours pass bit by bit and after Sam leaves me and Chandler are summoned downstairs into the living room, we take a seat next to each other and watch as each of our parent eyes us down, fiercely.

"What I wanted to-" Gina says, quickly looking to my Dad, "What we wanted to discuss with you was about how you should act around each other,"

Chandler instantly groans, "Mo-om, I don't need to know this stuff. I already know I can't get close to India that way."

And then I get what she means, she wanted to talk about this kind of stuff? Oh dear Lord. I look to Chandler with worried eyes and he stares back at me, worried too.

She notices us both looking at each other and she waves her hands, "Hello?"

We both clear our throats and turn to face them again, "I just don't want you two guys _messing around _OK? Do you know what the mothers from my group would think? And besides, you're supposed to be _brother and sister now, _you're going to have to be used to acting like you're actually related."

I watch as Chandler clenches his fists and looks as though he's about to say something, but instead he stops himself and his hands go back to being flat.  
"OK, I understand." he says, and he gets up from his seat and walks out.

Gina looks to me expectantly and I quickly reply, "I understand too," and then I proceed to walk out of the room. As soon as I'm far away from them I sprint up the stairs and leap into my bedroom. _What the hell was that all about? Does Gina think I'm a slut? _No, she couldn't possible think that. She was way too nice to make quick judgments about someone, especially if they were a part of her family now.

_Maybe she doesn't trust Chandler... _My subconscious tells me. Has Chandler done things like this before? On the TV he seems like an innocent guy... but I guess that's just his acting. Not the real him... So why do so many people love him to bits if they don't even know the real Chandler?

My new quest was to get to know him as much as I possibly could, this Chandler seemed interesting and I wanted to know more.

After my homework was completed, I decided to settle down and watch a movie on my laptop. The only problem was... I didn't bring any movies, and I had know idea where they kept their movies in this house. It was such a labyrinth, I never knew where I would end up.

_Maybe Chandler has some? I'm sure he won't mind... besides, I don't want to have to go downstairs and talk to Gina or Dad again about Chandler..._

I get up from my bed and walk across the hall to Chandler's room. I've never actually seen inside it before, only just a quick glance. I take in a deep breath and mentally prepare something to say.

_Hi Chandler! Just wondered if you had any movies I could borrow?  
_No, that sounded way too weird and preppy.

_Hi, you have any movies?  
_No, that just sounds really lazy and rude. Before I realize what I'm doing, I hit my fist against the hard wood of the door and knock three times. I hear shuffling noises from inside, a creak of the bed and then the door swings open, revealing Chandler in nothing but boxer shorts. I immediately go red but silently thank the Lord that the hallway was lighted up, even though he could probably see the redness glow off of me like I'm some kind of glow stick.

"Uh... hey," he says, and he looks me up in down. I wasn't sure why he was looking me up and down when he was the one in boxer shorts. I never knew how nervous a boy could make me feel until now.

"I-I just wondered if you had any movies." I ask, and he looks confused for a moment. "I just didn't want to go downstairs and have to see Gina and my Dad... they'd probably start to try give me _the talk_ again."

Chandler's lips spread into a thin smile and I hear a small laugh escape his lips... urgh, his lips...

_No, don't think about his lips, get over it and move on. _

"I have a couple hang on..." he says and he turns around. I suddenly feel a chill on my legs and remember that I was only wearing my bike shorts and a tight tank-top.

So that was why he was looking at me...

"You can come in, I don't want you to freeze out there," he says and laughs as he opens a small cupboard next to his TV.

I take a step in and look at my surroundings, he had a pretty good xbox system set up but he also had a bookshelf filled with books. Being the curious me, and the book lover, I walk over to the shelf instantly and examine each spine of every book. All I could say was that he had great taste.

"Here you go, this is the stack I have," he says and I quickly whip around.

"Oh, you like books too?" he asks, hopeful. I nod in reply and his face lights up, "Have you read _To Kill A Mockingbird_?"

_To Kill A Mockingbird _is a classic, of course I've read it! "Yeah," I say, shyly.

I take the stack of DVD's and start to head out of his room when he shoves his arm in front of me.

"By the way, you look good in those shorts," he says, and he grins. My face must have turned the brightest red of all time because Chandler almost fell over laughing.

I quickly scramble away from him but hear him say, "Could I watch one of them with you?" he asks. And I already know the answer. _Yes._

But Gina's answer would be no, and I knew I had to decline, so why didn't I?

"Of course you can," I say and I could also hear him smile. We set up a comfy seat on my bed with pillows and blankets, then I set my laptop in front of us. Chandler sneaks downstairs to grab some food and we get ready to watch the movie.

"What movie do you want to watch?" he asks, and I realize how incredibly close he sat. My leg and his leg were touching and the electric energy I felt rushing through me made me swell up with excitment.

"I don't mind," I reply and he chooses a movie out.

He slips the movie in and I notice the opened cover of 'The Avengers'.

"Sorry it's not a chick-flick," he mumbles, looking over at me with his ocean eyes.

"No it's all G, I hate chick-flicks. They're predictable, unrealistic an _so _sappy it just makes me want to puke. I mean, how many times can they make a movie where the girl and the guy like each other, they fight and then they hate each other, then the guy or the girl does something awesome to make up for it and it's all fine again? It just really annoys me."

Chandler stares at me wide-eyed and then starts to laugh. "You. Are. Absolutely. Right," he says in between laughs and I start to laugh along with him.

We finish the movie at around 11pm and Chandler stays behind to help pack up all the rubbish, place the blankets and pillows back in order and straightens the bed sheets too. He is such a sweetheart.  
"Thanks Chandler," I say with a smile. It felt good to hang out with him, I find now that I'm slowly starting to be able to talk to him without being so nervous. Or maybe it's because it's really late, I'm not entirely sure but I felt like I had known Chandler my whole life.

He smiles for a while before replying, "I like it when you say my name, _Indi," _

I grin at his adorableness and try to ignore the fact that he's flirting with me... or maybe he's just being nice. But the way he said it... He could be joking?

"I'll bring all the DVD's back since you cleaned up in here," I say, hoping he didn't think it was an excuse to go back in his room... Maybe it was an excuse maybe it wasn't, I just liked the feeling of being around Chandler.

I follow him as he walks to his room, pushes the door open and enters. I enter in slightly and view the rest of his room, I wasn't too sure at what theme he was getting at. There was a gamer theme, a book theme and then a ... punk theme? I try to keep my surprise secret as I look at all the punk rock bands on the posters that hung up like collages.

"What's wrong?" he asks, slightly confused.

"I didn't know you liked all these punk bands," I say, placing the DVD's carefully down.

"So what?" he asks, sharply which caught me off guard. Was he being rude or just asking a question?

"Goodnight Chandler," I say and leave the room. I wasn't going to go into discussion, and definitely not an argument with him. It would ruin the good mood he had put me in. The truth was, I knew all those bands by name. I listened and loved all of them but I had learned to keep it a secret.

My Dad is one of those Dad's who gets easily disappointed in their child, especially if they don't act like him. I pretend to be this straight A, goody-goody girl but instead I long to be just like Bella. Or someone who can express what they like by sticking posters on their walls, like Chandler. But, I hated, absolutely hated the feeling of when someone is disappointed in me. Even if I am in the right... It just makes me feel really bad.

Before I go to bed I check my phone and I see 3 new messages, who could it be? As the app opens I see it's labelled Unknown and I look at the messages that were sent.

_-Hey India!_

_-Did Chandler teach you how to make out with someone yet?_

_-Indiiiiiiiiii_

I smile as I read the messages and I instantly know that it is Sam. Sam could be so adorable, and funny but mostly adorable.

-Sorry Sam, i was watching a movie. How's it going?

I wait a couple of minutes before I hear the message come through,

_-What movie did you watch? And yeah it's been alright I guess. I miss hanging out with you and Channy,_

I snicker at the use of Chandler's nickname, it was funny and cute at the same time.

- We watched The Avengers, and I miss you too!

-_We? You watched it with Chandler?_

-Yeah

-_Oh... Well, I have to go get some sleep, bye! x_

-Oh... bye then... xx

I click my phone of and place it on the bed-side table, feeling quite confused about why he left so quickly. Was it something I said? Does he know that I'm not supposed to hang with Chandler like that?

Ugh, it was all too confusing and it was way too late to even care, so I turned on my side and quietly drifted off to sleep with Chandler in my dreams.


End file.
